I know what I did in September 2001

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I know what I did in September 2001

It's been 10 years since then and I suppose everybody here knows where he was on 9/11. Because of that we all know what kind of computers we had, what cell phones we had and how much we were paying for them.

In September of 2011 I was still on dial-up at home and I had a dumb Ericsson phone. As a side note, next year I had a Sony and in 2005 I had Sony-Ericsson. At the end of September 2001 I bought Apple iBook G3 at 500 MHz. Until then, I had only one notebook, Apple PowerBook Duo 250, gray scale beast ticking at 33MHz with 12MB of RAM. My home computers were both Macs, one running at 120MHz and other at 400 MHz.

I was paying twice as much for my monthly plan, talk and SMS only compared to what I pay today and now I even have 2GB of data included. Actually, now I have two contracts with two different carriers, one for iPhone 3GS and another for iPhone 4 and those two contracts together are 2/3 of my contract in 2001. Plus, I had to pay a bit more for that Ericsson phone than I did for iPhone 4.

I was programming in C back then. Now I use C and Objective C. I was Mac only, now I do stuff for Mac, Windows and iPhone. I started learning Java in 2001 but I gave up after only a few months because I really didn't like the language.

The world was in crisis back then as it is now, but somehow I feel more vulnerable now than I did back then. Maybe because I'm older or something.

How do you guys feel about the latest ten years. Are you better now or worse?

I was in Australia back then, just arrived. Ranting all about Telstra BigPond crappy internet service and expensive rates. Dialup at the time. I think I moved to cable shortly after. Pretty sure I did.

In 9/11 I was doing Visual Basic development for the small and medium size businesses. Was also doing website development in ASP and ColdFusion, but basically putting an end to that activity on a professional level (which I'm happy I did. Never much liked website development). I was still living the effects of the dot-com bubble. The loss of my (and a friend's) startup back in Canada two years before, and the whole web development thing never again looked the same to me. It had lost all of its appeal.

I was already married and we had two daughters. Rita, the youngest, had been born in May. I think I was happier back then. More confident of the future. Since then I've been loosing interest in my profession as a software developer. I've been battling to start my own business and just set back and watch, letting others run it well since 2000. I want to travel (my one passion) and live a life of shameful leisure. Hasn't materialized so far, however at the time I was pretty confident by the time I turned 40 that would be possible.

Security wise, 9/11 had a big impact on me. Especially the American reaction. I was a strong supporter of the Afghani war, but a violent critic of the invasion of Iraq. I also always had trouble understanding why the american people was so quick to dismiss any responsibility on the 9/11 attacks and was shocked, sad and profoundly troubled with the Patriot Act. It also had a big impact on me the fact a very dear couple friend of ours, leaving in Florida at the time, packed their bags an year later and went back home saying they couldn't recognize American society anymore. Grace even developed a depression during that time. The general distrust for foreigners, the constant false alarms, the speech of fear by the government, the use the media made of the events on the years to come into a circus parading politics and personality freaks... all where too much for her. I became politically motivated by the events and a firm critic of American society at the time, not understanding why such an horrendous act that should have united the world around USA had instead become a lost opportunity, and the "world" in fact turned against the USA.

I was 15 years old in high school and learning journalism. The hour it happened my teacher actually got a phone call he didn't answer in his office, because he was in class. It was his wife telling him to turn on the television; meaning that I didn't know what had happened until much later. It was still probably the best time to study the news in recent history.

Just a normal working day in the company I was working in at the time (made 4 job moves since). I think the first I heard of it was a thread on this site (which I cant seem to find...strangely) then it was mentioned on the radio, then within 10 minutes the whole floor was watching it crowded around an old 14 inch TV that someone had in their office.

The next morning, the whole building and many people from other organisations all went to the war memorial that was a few hundred meters away and stood in silence for five minutes in memory of the dead.

I had moved in with my dad north of Toronto after a decade out west. I had never heard of or seen the "World Trade Center" and was amazed by how sci-fi gigantic and utilitarian-ugly it looked; I was watching the news live when it happened and I thought it was some kind of gag at first.

At the end of the week, during which Wall St. was closed, I decided I wanted to go to NYC and take pictures on the Monday morning of everyone going back to work there for the first time. I barely had enough money for a bus ticket.

I'd hoped hitchhiking would work in the country side where I'd grown up, but was disappointed, meaning I then had to walk about 4 hours to the nearest public transit. Because of that, I missed the bus that would have gotten me to Penn Station at 5:30am, and instead arrived at 8:30. It was too late to take my pictures...

I actually did not even find the World Trade Center for three days because I got so distracted by NYC, which I'd never been to. It was so great later on I lived there for five years. I was amazed by the people, who in general were nicer, happier seeming, and more laid back even a week after 9/11 than people in Toronto are at Christmas time, lol.

Obviously, I consider the event a tragedy and think it had very negative consequences for Western society and the world in general. But if it had never happened, I might never have visited New York, the memory of which stayed with me and inspired me to move there in 2005, reversing a very low trend in my mental health -- it might even have saved my life.

The loss of my (and a friend's) startup back in Canada two years before, and the whole web development thing never again looked the same to me. It had lost all of its appeal.

... Since then I've been loosing interest in my profession as a software developer.

It probably happens to anyone trying to do something bold and then failing due to some uncontrolled, unexpected external factors. I have spent most of 1997 and first half of 1998 working day in day out. Then something ruined my plans and then I found myself playing Civilization II for the rest of the year.

I think I've read somewhere that feeling helpless for a longer period of time would trigger depression faster and deeper than anything else. But, I suppose you knew that. Finding every now and then something new you enjoy exploring would bring you back to childhood years of happiness and carelessness. That's probably the the best way out of bad mood and back into business.

I was amazed by the people, who in general were nicer, happier seeming, and more laid back even a week after 9/11 than people in Toronto are at Christmas time, lol.

Yes, the first thing I noticed about the people there. I've spent 10 days in NY in the year 2000 and I must return one day. Better, I'd be happy to live in NY during winter and around Mediterranean sea during summer.

I spent the afternoon (early morning local NY time) of September 11th at my desk at work thinking about what to pack for my flight to NY scheduled for the end of the week. We were already coding C# back then although it was still beta or maybe just released. My internet at home was so blazing fast... that I'd probably reboot my router today to see if it's broken.

The burning towers marked the turning point of my personal 2001. From a great relationship and no worries through the summer rapidly deterioating into a mess of break up and a cancer diagnosis lacking any hope for a family member. 2001 definatly saw the most emotional moments of my personal life, good as well as bad and the WTC catastrophe fit right in. Like the world and I just found out, that it sucks.

I was a *little* boy back then, interested in breaking open everything to see how they worked.
For me, the event was the first real introduction into the existence of an international society (before that I understood that there was something called 'foreign' countries but didn't understand what it meant !)
From the television, I remember being amazed by the facts that buildings could be >=100 stories high, and some people would willingly break them down, (attacking it with an plane !)

In the next 10 years, I had experienced 6 years of wonderful Hostel life and was introduced to computers about 3 years ago(from now).

Manasij Mukherjee | gcc-4.9.2 @Arch Linux Slow and Steady wins the race... if and only if :1.None of the other participants are fast and steady.
2.The fast and unsteady suddenly falls asleep while running !

on september 11, 2001, I was at my second day as a tire and lube tech at a local auto repair shop. I was patching a flat tire when I realized that the radio personality was talking about a terrorist attack. as SlyMaelstrom said, I would never have guessed that I'd be working as a software developer now. it was my dream job in high school, and now I've been doing it for 4 years. I'm in one of the few growth industries left in this global recession - corrections. with more people incarcerated than ever before, my business is booming, although I do feel sorry for those who are struggling. there's not much I can do about it, other than to continue spending my money to stimulate the economy, and elect better lawmakers (note that I didn't say politicians) to public office.

I was in DC at the time, in a government office building. We were having a meeting, one we have on alternating Tuesdays at 9:00. That's how I'll always remember that day as a Tuesday. Towards the end of the meeting coworkers in the office started running around talking about planes crashing into buildings. My first thought was "what, like a Cessna?" Then the Pentagon was hit, just across the Potomac river from us. The evacuation order came down and there was horrible traffic as everyone tried to cram onto the streets to leave DC. Driving out of the city we couldn't see the Pentagon directly but we did see the smoke.

"Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods."
-Christopher Hitchens

I was 16 years old at the time. I remember going to school that day and hearing small amounts of chatter about it in the morning, but I didn't hear anything solid until 3rd period choir class - my choir teacher stood in front of the class and told us everything that had happened. We then proceeded to watch everything going on on TV for most of the rest of the school day.